Our six month trip home to re-let the house had turned into eleven months, and a house move after twenty eight plus years, so when we climbed into the plane feeling like zombies, ten days after our move, we felt in need of a break! The gods were kind, we were a week ahead of the snow which grounded everyone else the following week.

What Giles described as one of the most comfortable flights he'd ever had due to having emergency seats, for me was sheer torture, I had managed to fall backwards off a ladder two days before flying, and had a damaged coccyx as well two broken ribs, hardly conducive to sitting in one place for more than a few minutes!

We knew that there were bound to be unforeseen problems awaiting us on Brother Wind, so many friends had told us that the tropics are not a kind place for out of commission yachts, and here we were returning to our second home after eleven months away, instead of the intended six.

Happily Noel, an American live-aboard guy at Rebak had been airing her regularly in our absence, as well as running the engine, whose battery had died while we've been away, so we had no internal mould, and apart from the resident micro ant population, who had survived but not multiplied in our absence, inside looked fine.

Problems began to raise their heads rather too rapidly on deck, first the solenoid cut out on the gas had seized up, and needed replacing, then we looked under the sun rotted cover we had put over the dinghy, and to our horror found that our lovely 2 year old RIB dinghy was falling to bits, rowlocks, handles and all fittings had come straight off, and the inflatable pontoons had separated in many places from the aluminium hull!

A huge amount of Giles's efforts since we've been back have been concentrated on sticking the dinghy back together again to get us through the next three months that we are here, and give us time to do battle with Aquapro the New Zealand manufacturers. We undoubtedly will have to buy another dinghy, but they take ages to be delivered here, otherwise we have found Farid a local man who will rebuild us ours in hyperlon, which should last much better.

Meanwhile other tasks such as putting the windlass back together, complete with new part that we brought back from the UK, and generally cleaning up the outside, where mould had formed a black film over our varnish, all seem to have taken time.

We came out of the water for a pressure wash, much needed, the last time we'd been out was two years ago in New Zealand, and we had a lot of hangers on in the form of huge mussels, even the coveted green lipped variety, and varying sizes of barnacles and other mollusks.

There was a nasty moment on the first day when we had booked a haul out, the engine started fine, and had plenty of revs in neutral, but as soon as we put it into gear to move out of our berth, there was absolutely no power, someone suggested it might be growth on the prop, so poor Giles had the dubious pleasure of diving in the murky waters of the marina to clean it. Happily it is very tidal, so it could have been a lot worse! It has been the one occasion to date that I was pleased to be incapacitated, as it is a job that would normally have fallen to me!

Our arrival fortuitously coincided with friends Midge and Michelle, on Fourstar, who have headed off to Vietnam for a month, but it was good to catch up with them for a few days, we'll see them later on in Thailand. One or two other friends are here too, Brian and Glee, Brian had a horrible experience of taking on an elderly crew member for a trip back down to Singapore, when the poor man had a heart attack, and although they eventually managed to get assistance to take him off the boat, he was then left waiting in a corridor in a public hospital and died. The moral of this story is to shout 'PRIVATE' with your last breath, and you might stand a better chance.

We caught up with RCC friends Tony and Serena yesterday, who related another horror story here in Langkawi, where two boats had been partying. There were three men and two women, one man insulted a woman, a knife was drawn, and used, but evidently the guy who was stabbed though bleeding carried on partying and they all made up. Next morning, they brought the boats into the Royal Langkawi and he died! The knife brandishing friend is now locked up in jail here!

So we've missed lots of scandal in our absence. Meanwhile we're hoping to be joined by Giles's brother Mark next week. Our proposed trip to the Andamans is not looking at all likely, unless my ribs suddenly get better, but time will tell. Otherwise we will head for north west Thailand, and the off-lying Semillan and Surin Islands, which should be likely.

Meanwhile all RIB and rib problems will resolve themselves for better or worse!